2/4/13 – Outsmarting con artists (American Psychological Association)

Each year, researchers estimate that more than 30 million Americans are victims of financial fraud, whether it’s losing their retirement savings to a deceitful financial advisor, falling for an Internet scam or having their money surreptitiously siphoned by their own adult children.

Fraud may total up to $50 billion annually in the United States and is on the rise: Reported incidents rose more than 700 percent between 2001 and 2011, according to the Federal Trade Commission, and that doesn’t account for the thousands of cases researchers expect go unreported — or even unrecognized by the victims themselves — each year.

To help support and disseminate research that addresses this problem, in 2011 psychologist Laura Carstensen, PhD, and financial expert Martha Deevy founded the Financial Fraud Research Center. The center is part of the Stanford Center on Longevity and is funded in part by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Investor Education Foundation.

Read the full article at the American Psychological Association.